


an empty space you left behind

by Loz



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Friends to Lovers, Guitars, Long-Distance Friendship, M/M, Music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-09
Updated: 2018-08-09
Packaged: 2019-06-24 08:40:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15626961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loz/pseuds/Loz
Summary: Scott watches Stiles learn how to play guitar from thousands of miles away. Stiles is very deliberate in the songs he plays.





	an empty space you left behind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Stivvy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stivvy/gifts).



> Inspired by [this gifset](http://dylantyler.tumblr.com/post/176728985168/dylantyler-wait-didnt-he-have-a-guitar-oh). Title from ‘Missing U’ by Robyn, because it’s a great song and ‘strumming my pain with his fingers’ was somehow even less subtle.

On Tuesday, Stiles launches from the side of the screen to the center with a guitar neck clutched firmly in his hand and a manic grin planted firmly on his face. 

“What did you do?”

“It was sitting there all innocent and lonely at the pawn shop, Scotty. It cost me like five shifts’ worth, if that. I spent more on that jacket last month. Listen. I already know some songs.”

That jacket? Scott has fond memories of Stiles modeling it for him. It hugged his wide shoulders, making them seem even wider, and accentuated the slimness of his waist. It’s an attractive jacket. Scott likes it very much. Scott sits through two excruciating renditions of Three Little Birds and Hound Dog, heart thumping louder than usual - loud enough he worries Stiles could hear it - as he watches Stiles’ tongue, peeking out the side of his mouth. 

Oh. This is Not Great.

“Good try!” Scott says, because he doesn’t like to lie to Stiles and he cannot praise the actual playing. “Keep at it.”

Stiles beams at him. There’s no way he can’t tell Scott’s being diplomatic, but at the same time, he doesn’t seem to care he’s nowhere near a Hendrix. 

“I’m gonna!”

*

On a Saturday weeks later, the guitar is on the bed as Stiles is chatting to Scott about blood spatter patterns, and Scott can’t stop his eyes from wandering to it. Stiles catches him after one gruesome retelling of the blood spatter from a women whose wife had used an electric drill post-mortem. He squints, glances from the bed back to Scott.

“You wanna hear my progress?”

“Anything other than the continued adventures of Denise the Demonic Dentist, yeah, dude,” Scott says, wincing. 

Scott rolls his shoulders and sucks in a few deep breaths as he watches Stiles reach over and grab the guitar in an ungainly sprawl. Stiles’ shirt rides up and Scott resolutely refuses to stare at the strip of skin above his boxers and the hem of his shirt. The pale skin with two, no, three moles. The treasure trail that used to make Scott jealous.

He fails. 

“I know nine chords,” Stiles says, holding the guitar with a far more natural position than the last time. “I can play them with more than thirty seconds between each change.”

“You sound like you’ve actually been practicing.”

“I have. Every day. Who knew I could attain a talent?”

“You already had plenty of talents,” Scott counters.

“Yeah,” Stiles scoffs, “That were already inherent in me being me. A loud mouth, insatiable curiosity, and ability to piss off all minority and majority groups. Talents, sure, but nothing I learned.”

Scott frowns a deliberate frown. “You don’t really think that’s true, do you?”

“No, of course not,” Stiles says, scrabbling for a pick on his desk, gesturing wildly when he successfully lifts it. He mutters the next part, but Scott still hears it. “I know it is.”

Stiles plays him ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’, and it isn’t what Scott would call capable or even intermediate playing, but Stiles even sings along and seems really into it, so Scott can’t help but be thoroughly charmed anyway. Plus, Stiles’ long, strong-looking fingers against the fret-board have been doing all sorts of things to Scott’s entire body. 

His face smiles against his own volition. “That was super cute, buddy.”

“That’s the first time you ever called me cute.”

Maybe to his face.

*

On a lazy Friday evening, spent indoors rather than out partying, Stiles plays Scott, ‘I Can’t Help Falling in Love With You’. It’s beautiful and Scott surreptitiously wipes a tear from the corner of his eye. Unfortunately, nothing is surreptitious when Stiles is involved. 

“They weren’t tears of ear-splitting pain, were they?”

“I wouldn’t tell you even if they were, you know that,” Scott says. But he shakes his head. “But no, it’s just one of those songs that always gets me.” Scott gestures at his chest.

It’s true, not a word of a lie, but he was also imagining Stiles singing this song to him for real, not just to show off, and it hurts to know that’s not going to happen any time soon. Probably not ever. Scott resolved himself to that after Stiles decided to go to Washington rather than stay with him, but… but it still sounds out like a discordant note inside his heart.

*

Monday morning a few months later, Stiles texts Scott to ask if he’ll be a sounding board for his rendition of, ‘Fix You’. Scott listens as he writes a paper, swaying from side to side. Stiles has gotten so good he plays with minimal breaks. Scott’s a mixture of proud and sorrow-filled that he hasn’t seen the improvement in person. 

*

It’s Saturday. Scott’s had a shitty week, a shitty month if he’s being honest, and he’s lying on his bed, head on the pillow, cradling his laptop. It’s past midnight. Stiles is up, occasionally wandering around while he talks, even though it’s literally the middle of the night for him - if not the early morning. He’s wearing a loose gray shirt and Spider-Man boxers and Scott wishes he could reach out and tug him into bed. 

“Sing me to sleep?” Scott asks, after twenty minutes of telling Stiles exactly why he’s three fourths the way to miserable. (His friend Shelley ran over a kitten and neither of them could save it, his shifts at the local vet’s were cut, he sent his mom money rather than buying more Aggie cash and is constantly hungry, and Liam was almost captured and slaughtered by hunters.)

Stiles peers at him in the dim light, his face soft and warm in a way that Scott rarely got to see in person, let alone through their video chats, and he returns with his guitar a moment later.

“Um, okay. I’m not amazing at this song yet because I only started it a week ago. But I think you’ll like it.” His next words are muted. “I hope you will.”

When Stiles begins strumming and singing ‘Thinking Out Loud’, Scott’s breath stops in his throat and he clutches his pillow tight with his left hand, claws pricking the cover. 

Stiles won’t look at him when he finishes, sets his guitar down. “Sweet dreams, Scotty,” he murmurs, disconnecting the chat. 

Scott stares up at the ceiling for another two hours. 

It can’t be what he’s thinking.

Stiles would have said something.

Stiles is terrible with handling his emotions but is always vocal in his love.

Yet Stiles has been singing and playing him love songs since those first two tracks. Only love songs. 

*

“You feeling better?” Stiles asks the next time they’re face to face. It’s another Tuesday. They’ve texted during the past couple of weeks or so, but that’s all, and Scott had found himself increasingly mimicking Stiles’ expressions and speech cadences in lieu of the real thing, to the bafflement of his college friends.

“I haven’t learned how to play guitar in the space of seventeen days,” Scott says without answering the question being asked. “But I downloaded this karaoke track.”

Scott starts the track, rocks back in his chair, braces himself, and tries not to fall apart with nerves. 

“Love me tender  
Love me sweet  
Never let me go  
You have made my life complete  
And I love you so

Love me tender  
Love me true  
All my dreams fulfilled  
For my darlin’ I love you  
And I always will”

Stiles’ expression morphs from confusion to fondness to joy. He picks up his guitar and plays along towards the end of the song, humming with Scott, adding a little harmony when he can. 

“You noticed, huh?” Stiles asks when Scott finishes, scratching the back of his neck and ducking his head down.

“It took me way too long,” Scott says. He shrugs, smiles. “I got there eventually.”

“Yeah, so, I’m like head over heels in love with you, Scott,” Stiles says, too earnest considering the casual phrasing, the nonchalant slant of his shoulders.

“That’s good to hear. I’m like truly, madly, deeply in love with you too.” Scott grins, full of a huge quantity of unnamed and usually suppressed emotions. 

Stiles’ answering smile has Scott’s palms feeling clammy and his nerves zinging. 

“I feel very strongly that we need to somehow be in the same room so we can make sweet, sweet music together,” Stiles says, voice a little rough, like he’s holding back his own crescendo of feelings and can only let one or two loose. 

“I completely agree.”

*

On Thursday evening, after Scott’s least favorite lectures and the longest and most frustrating shift at the vet’s clinic, he finds himself humming along to an old song he’s only heard once or twice in the past 10 years. It takes a while to place it.

It takes even longer to realize he’s humming it because he can hear a guitar strumming the chords. He throws open the window to his shoebox apartment, blood thundering in his veins, hoping against hope he’s going to see what he thinks he is. 

Stiles stands there with his guitar. 

“In my life, I love you more,” Stiles sings. 

Scott rushes down the stairs on all fours, damn near crashes through the door in a cartoon cut-out. He’s not proud of it, but it is what it is. 

He’s careful as he adjusts the guitar so it’s on Stiles’ back, soft as he cradles his jaw, and high-pitched as Stiles closes the distance between them before he gets a chance to and kisses him with a rhythm and tempo that leave him breathless.


End file.
